"In the teams at Nestlé 's research centers, nutritionists are highly valued professionals who are always present. In fact, we have more than 5,000 researchers dedicated to Nutrition and we invest 1.6 billion euros in the nutritional improvement of our products". This was stated by Anabel Aragón, manager Nutrition, Health and Wellness at Nestlé during the industry symposium of the Master's Degree European Symposium on Food, Nutrition and Metabolism (E-MENU) at the University of Navarra.

The expert, who has developed her degree program as a nutritionist in several countries where the multinational is present, explained the commitment of business to reduce sugars, trans or hydrogenated fats and salt in its products: "In the last 15 years, for example, we have developed 213 projects to reduce our ice creams to a maximum of 100 kcal, lowering fat and sugar and trying to maintain the organoleptic qualities. The challenge consists of reducing trans fats, sugars and salt while maintaining the texture and flavor to which we have become accustomed".

In any case, he said, "it is an obligation for Nestlé to continue working with this goal, since programs of study around the world leaves no doubt about the serious obesity problem we have. average In Spain, without going any further, the percentage of children with obesity is already 18% and several programs of study point out that, for the first time, the coming generations will live 10 years less than their parents".

"In Spain," he warned,"we take more than twice as much salt as we need. In some products we have managed to reduce it with a strategy as simple as keeping the salt in the outer layer of the product, or on the top, and eliminating the rest, so that we trick our taste buds by providing salt in the first bite and reduce the salt in the rest of the dish or product."

The Precision Nutrition Revolution

For his part, Alfredo Martinez, Full Professor of Nutrition and director of postgraduate program E-MENU, explained on the occasion of meeting that precision nutrition"will change the current approach to personalized nutrition by extending the factors to be taken into account from Genetics and epigenetics to previous ailments, food intolerances, personal tastes, gastronomic habits, physical limitations and other circumstances that can guarantee the true success of a per diem expenses".

In the opinion of the specialist, researcher of the research center Biomédica at network CIBERobn,"precision nutrition will surpass what is known as personalized nutrition because the fact of taking into account many other determining circumstances can mark a before and after in the development of diets truly adapted to each individual".

This symposium brought together at the academic center companies from the food and health sector such as Nestlé, Florette, CINFA Laboratories and the Japanese company Ajinomoto, business , related to the development of umami products, a term used to describe the "fifth" flavor, discovered by one of the promoters of the business at the beginning of the 20th century and from which various food additives are already being developed.